


Too Much Radiation, Not Enough Detoxing

by Star_less



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alien Biology, Desperate Tenth Doctor, Desperation, Detoxing, Dreams vs. Reality, Episode: s03e01 Smith and Jones, Gen, Not Canon Compliant, Omorashi, References to Illness, Sick Character, Wetting, the Doctor dreams of Rose because I’m evil like that, the Doctor has to pee because well you get it by now, the Doctor is ill because I’m evil like that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23045050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_less/pseuds/Star_less
Summary: When a detoxing goes wrong, the Doctor feels a little off colour and the TARDIS whisks him off to the Royal Hope Hospital.Then, just as he feels better he takes in a load of Roentgen radiation to stun one of the monsters of the week and has to expel it, which... doesn’t go as planned.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor & Martha Jones
Comments: 16
Kudos: 11





	Too Much Radiation, Not Enough Detoxing

**Author's Note:**

> Read tags. Hit backspace if this ain’t for you, honeys!
> 
> honestly I had more fun making the Doctor sick so this is a weird sickfic style omo and you get TWO omo scenes you lucky ducks also this is so long I’m so sorry.
> 
> Inspired by a text post which I can’t find on tumblr but it was basically ‘lol what if the Doctor pissed himself when he was trying to expel that radiation’

“He _poisoned_ me!”  
Swinging his legs as he sat on a bed in the infirmary, the Doctor’s arms came around himself to self soothe. He winced slightly at the tugging sensation in his lower stomach but tried valiantly to ignore it. “Bit extreme?!”

 **”You snogged his daughter,”** responded the TARDIS, in a tone that was so nonchalant he expected her to be shrugging at him. 

As if a little kiss made him evil...

 **”The _Emperor’s_ daughter,”** the TARDIS continued, scolding, reading his thoughts. **“ _Then_ you skipped out on the ceremonial procedure.”**

”He wanted a blood pact and for me to be married into the Evon’qui family line and- _agh_!” the Doctor spluttered, hissing in pain and doubling over, both hands pressed to his stomach. “Is that what you want, mh?” He spat out between his teeth, managing to sound incredulous even through the pain. “Me never travelling again, married, living in a castle?”

 **”I want you to take better care of yourself,”** The TARDIS ignored his question, and this time her tone was gentle and motherly.   
Rose had gone. It wasn’t her fault— it was nobody’s fault— but Rose had gone and oh, well, the Doctor was not taking her departure so well. Rose kept him grounded, and stopped him doing silly things like this. Now that she wasn’t around, he didn’t care - and not even the TARDIS’ influence could encourage him. He had crash landed somewhere in Spain, drank (a lot) partied (even more) and only returned, tail between his legs, when he had been poisoned and was in dire need of a detox. The ever-faithful TARDIS had seen that he get the detox procedure underway, but was quietly scouring the universe for something—anything—that he could get his teeth stuck into and maybe find a new companion to settle with. Most puzzling of all was that the detox didn’t quite seem to be working like it usually did. Most of the toxin had been flushed out of his body, but there seemed to be some leftovers that weren’t quite being scraped up. It was most odd, and the TARDIS quite hoped her Doctor would stay away from travelling for a day or two so that the toxin could exit his body entirely. 

Of course, pigs may also fly. 

Slowly, the Doctor rose to his feet and hobbled out to the console room. 

**“Where are you going?”**

The Doctor ignored her, pulling levers and pushing buttons, grunting a little. It hurt. 

**“You know what the detox process does to your body, Doctor, are you sure you want to travel? Especially so far away from a bathroom?”**

She was being pointed now, and the Doctor scoffed. He was 904 years old, he could very much control himself. The fact that the detox process wreaked havoc on his kidneys was one that he knew very well, and one that he had become acquainted with before, but... he was fine... he would be fine. He was always fine. He was fine right now, tip-top shape. “Allons-y!” He beamed triumphantly, slamming a lever forward, perhaps even more pointed than the TARDIS herself. Set in motion, the ship began to move - and watched as the Doctor strode around, cheerful as ever, hiding his winces behind a smile, thinking he had gotten the last laugh. 

**“I’ll show you last laugh,”** thought the TARDIS, and plonked the Time Lord down in 21st century London, 2007, outside of the Royal Hope Hospital.  
~

”I don’t know what you’re expecting me to do,” the Doctor mumbled, frowning, stood in front of the TARDIS. He had marched furiously into the hospital with the intention of lying low, and promptly doubled over in agony—his abdomen felt like it was being turned inside out—and gotten himself admitted. Under doctor’s orders he was to stay there for a few days until he recovered. Naturally, the second he had been offered a bed and eased himself into his pyjamas, the consultant left and The Doctor jumped up to go on some sort of adventure. Abdominal pain be damned.  
The TARDIS wouldn’t think of bringing him somewhere like this if he had to heal... surely not. There was no need for him to leave the infirmary otherwise, so she must have sensed trouble somehow. Except there was nothing. No Cybermen in the basement, no Dalek-human hybrids hiding in the morgue. The TARDIS was parked just outside of the hospital and her doors wouldn’t budge, no matter how much he begged, clicked his fingers or jiggled the TARDIS key. He was stood on the wet bank in front of his ship with the grass squelching beneath his slippered feet and dew kissing his pyjama bottoms.

 **”You get back to bed now!”** said the TARDIS. 

Her thief whined, and jiggled the door experimentally, bending at the knees. “Please let me in,” he begged, but she wouldn’t budge.  
~

Getting back to bed was... a struggle. Not that the Time Lord wanted to admit it, not even to the TARDIS, but weakness was flowering in the backs of his knees and he trembled as he went. When he breathed in and out, there was this sensation - a cross between having butterflies and getting a stitch. He knew exactly what it was. Well, aside from the detox going wrong.   
He had to pee. Just like every detox he had ever had, it ravaged his kidneys and juiced every last drop out of them, so what was usually a once-every-three-days sort of deal became a six-times-a-day sort of deal. Even more if he drank regularly. Not a problem, not really. Not even now. Sure, the TARDIS wouldn't open her doors, but he could duck into the bathrooms at the hospital without anybody batting an eyelid. He was sure, he thought to himself, dragging his dead-weight legs toward the ward he was staying on, there was a bathroom just next to ward 36's double doors and then all of a sudden the floor was getting very close to his eyes and he started going a bit too horizontal for his liking and...

and...

Seconds later he was being shook. Hard. The butterflies in his midsection came harder now, a vicious spike in his stomach that made him grunt and want to fold himself over. If anything, they were what yanked him head first into waking up rather than the, "Mr Smith... John... Mr Smith, can you hear me?" that someone was shouting over him. Slowly he opened his eyes; a blurry view of the world connected together before him. Dark. It was dark and dim. It hadn’t been this dark earlier.   
He shifted. There was a bed underneath him, nursing his aching... everything.  
And a woman, a young woman, dark brown eyes gazing right over him. She saw him wake up and flinched, then cracked a beaming smile. "Mr Smith! I'm Martha Jones, I'm your doctor this evening. No need to worry..."--she must've seen the frown on his face--"...you just took a tumble."  
She lifted his pyjama shirt. "I've looked over your notes and I'm going to give you a check-up quickly, okay?" 

Her hands roamed his midriff, kneading into his bread-like skin at either side. The sensation wasn’t entirely unpleasant but sent pinpricks of discomfort up his spine and wrenched uncomfortable animalian sort of whimpers free - especially when her fingers poked and prodded that warm swollen boundary that was his filled bladder. “No...” he hissed, shuffling his bum, eyes closing as he anticipated what Martha was about to do— _no, please no_ —she curved her hand on the swell of his bladder— _pleasepleaseplease no_ —and pressed. “Tha- _ah_!-“ the Doctor gripped the sheets as a painful spike of urgency drove its way through his middle, fighting the urge to squirm. 

“I’m sorry, I am so sorry!” Martha winced, relenting and lowering his pyjama shirt. “It looks like you have a kidney infection. I’m going to prescribe you some antibiotics. I want you to drink plenty of fluids and use the toilet as much as you need. That fall worried me so I’d like for you to get some bed rest rather than get yourself up and using the toilet.” She beamed; the Doctor frowned. How she could talk about such things with a big beaming smile on her face was beyond him, especially when his own face was burning and his skin crawled with shame if he did so much as glance at her. What am I meant to do then, he thought to himself, apparently slightly too transparent because Martha smiled sympathetically and moved around to the other side of his bed, indicating a stack of kidney shaped dishes made out of cardboard. “You’ve got a stack of bedpans here. The nurse on call will empty them. Might even be me, if I’m lucky!” She joked... and left him well alone.  
~  
(Martha came in once more as the evening drew in to check his vitals were steady. He needed to drink more, he had ‘gone’ a grand total of once ever since his admission, she had said while holding out a small bottle of orange juice and offering him a stern glare - but wasn’t able to stop herself from breaking out into a smile. It was the smile that did it for him, in the end— she had a gorgeous, infectiously bright smile. “I know,” he mumbled, reaching for the bottle— _don’t you dare_ —unscrewing the cap— _please_ —and with shaking fingers gingerly raising it to his lips— _no_!—although he only managed a meagre mouthful before his bladder clenched, a painful reminder of what he was about to do. Automatically, his hand jerked forward to grab himself. Beneath his tightly tucked bedsheets his legs were trembling fiercely. Even though it did very little to soothe the aching fullness of his middle, he found that he couldn’t keep himself still if he tried. That was without the room itself, which had decided to explode and contract over and over again before spinning him softly like he was on a carousel. Even Martha had gained a twin somewhere along the way and oh bloody hell alright maybe the TARDIS was right and he was feeling _a little bit_ off colour.

“You alright?” Martha asked, dipping her head to look at him in concern. 

“No, I...” He stopped and looked at her, physically feeling the colour drain from him and then return, beet red, seconds later. What was he meant to say to that? _‘Oh no, Martha, the thing is, I was poisoned and tried to detox myself but decided to go travelling instead and now my body is trying desperately to keep detoxing and I’m dying for a pee’?_  
He swallowed, grimacing. “Fine, thanks. I think I just need to get some sleep.”

She nodded in understanding and bid him a quiet goodnight.)  
~

The Doctor groaned.   
He couldn't sleep.   
He had slept solidly for an hour when Martha had left - one of those fantastic dream filled sort of sleeps, and then it had melted away, and something was trying to tug him out of it.   
He was in a meadow, secluded, the grass thick and lush between his bare toes -- and there was a waterfall, the stream ringing sweetly against the rocks beneath and splashing a spray of sweet-scented water up against him if he got too close. Rose was with him, laughing as she eased off her sandals and unbuttoned her mid-length skirt. "Come on Doctor," she skipped toward him, "let's go skinny dipping." They were perfectly secluded, so he had considered it, although the rushing of the waterfall made his neck itch in discomfort. "I- I don't..." he shied away from her and she laughed a gorgeous laugh and declared him a chicken. He denied it, of course; no, it wasn't that, he was distinctly uncomfortable, like the rushing of the water had curled around his midsection and squeezed nice and tight. He shivered, his face reddened as he admitted, "I need the loo, it's all this water," and Rose only nodded, because she was good like that, and he ran off into this great copse of trees that unwound themselves before him, chose a particularly thirsty looking one, and eased himself from the confines of his trousers. The piss that followed was, quite frankly, absurd - a great big bursting sort of splatter that ran in wet lines against the tree, over and over, a spiralling never ending sort of gush, and all he could do was try not to stumble to his knees as relief slapped him in the face and just keep pissing himself silly.  
Somewhere, though, there was something else - another slap, but harder and quicker and overandoverandover, and this great big fluttered sting right up from his curled toes to his hair, and then all of a sudden the Doctor had exploded awake with a gasp, wetness kissing his boxers, hands fumbling to grip himself to stop it and clamping his legs for good measure. He had been close, seconds-away sort of close, from soaking himself. That was why he couldn't sleep, that was it, ticking away in the back of his mind.   
Rocking back and forth, teeth grit, his gaze went to the stack of bedpans. _He couldn't_ \--forwardbackforwardback-- _he couldn't, he_ \--backforwardbackforward-- _was better than_ ** _nghh_** \-- _this, everyone - everyone would hear him, he_ \-- ** _mnff_** _\-- _would have to go through the humiliation of getting someone to clear it up afterwards...._  
\--well, it wasn't a case of if he couldn't, because he-- he had to. Swallowing thickly (and feeling all of his pride disappear) he strained to reach forward with one hand, grasping one of the cardboard bowls in small gripped fingers and tugging it close. The other hand scrabbled to fish himself out of his pyjama bottoms. Shifting close to the bowl, he let rip just as he had done in the dream, gushing hard, and let out a muffled moan of happiness into his pillow. When he had finished - dizzy, exhausted - he moved the bowl, and was dead to the world in an exhausted dreamless sleep by the time a nurse tiptoed in to take it away._  
~

“We’re on the moon.”  
Why Martha had gone into Mr. Smith's bed to tell him this was something she couldn't quite work out. There was something about him, like he was just... different. Like he had this aura - like he knew something. Even if he wasn't exactly doing the best job at looking after himself.

“...what?”  
Not exactly what he fancied hearing with his breakfast.  
The Time Lord had plastered a smile on his face, as he had gotten used to doing whenever a nurse came in and asked him how he was feeling and whether he had eaten or drank anything. This one was a bit brighter than usual because it was Martha who stepped in, and he really rather liked her, but as quick as it was there it had disappeared. Was he hearing correctly? Delirious from the poisoning? His hand paused in almost midair as he moved to pop a straw into his morning OJ. Well, that didn't sound right at all. Oh, that was brilliant! This was what the TARDIS must have locked onto. Well, there was only a handful of reasons as to why an Earth hospital would end up on the moon... all of them amazing, when all he had done was laze in bed and was itching for something exciting.  
Now things were getting interesting! His mouth twitched into one of his brilliantly manic smiles.

“We’re on the moon. The whole hospital, on the moon.” Martha again. Brilliant! She was doing that thing, that 'awed shock' thing, and oh he loved it!

He tried his hardest not to blow his cover - he was John Smith - she only knew John Smith - to her he was not the Doctor - he was not getting himself a companion again after... after that had happened, last time. "Can I, can I drink this?" he squeaked, holding up his juice. 

"What? Oh!" she laughed nervously, slipping away from his bedside. "Oh, sorry Mr. Smith. Of course you can. Sorry. Enjoy your breakfast."

Smiling to himself, the Doctor sucked down his first OJ of the day and scrambled into his familiar blue suit. This was going to be fun!  
~

It was the Judoon, as he had expected the second Martha said, ‘moon’. What he hadn’t expected, was for them to be searching for a non-human. Clasping Martha’s hand in his, all he could do was hope for the best and that they were fast enough to outrun the rhinos until they found the fugitive. “But, I- I still don’t...” she panted, running down a corridor with her hand firmly pressed into his. “I don’t believe... you can’t be—!”  
Martha didn’t understand. To be fair, he had let her work his entire life story out by herself - no chatting through it, like he had done with Rose. He had already proved it to her once, he wasn’t sure what more she needed. Letting out a rattled sigh, he bit back an answer. His middle was feeling unbearably full, as if his OJ had dropped directly through, and as the familiar pulses began to start up and urge him toward the bathroom they whittled away at his patience. 

“NON HUMAN,” growled a Judoon, a Slab jumping forward and shining its flashlight in his face. It had come out of nowhere and the shock jolted him—enough for a pearl of warm wetness to trickle its way free. Hissing a breath in through his teeth, he sucked in his stomach and tightened his legs for a split second. _Not now, not now, he didn’t need any of this **now...**_

“Aaaaand again!” The Time Lord sighed, grimacing as he turned on the spot and took off. It was at precisely this moment that he wished he had listened to the TARDIS after all, because he sort of felt like he was running through treacle. Every time he took a long stride, he would get this twisted sort of ache right into his middle; the sort of ache that would usually have him ‘ooh’ing and rubbing his middle or at the very least tightening his legs together. But the Judoon were a ruthless lot, and God only knew what would happen to him if he let himself get caught. Swallowing thickly, he tuned into the thump-thud of the Slab behind them and again an urge pressed between his thighs, the sort that wanted him to swing over at the waist and groan. He dug his nails into Martha’s palm to hold it back, breathing fluttering and hitched, _finally_ pressing his legs tight as he bundled her into one of the scanning rooms and slammed the door. Not that it meant he could relax any... he stumbled over to the MRI scanner, studying it as he bounced on the toes of his Converse. “When I say ‘now’, press the button!” He shouted, and hoped that Martha didn’t want him to show her what button, because he did _not_ have the patience for that. Grimacing, he leaned forward on his tiptoes and aimed the scanner to send (a really quite satisfying) fizzling blast through the Slab. The leather bound figure fell to the floor with a deadened thunk, but not even its glossy black helmet cracked.

Martha squealed and flinched.

“...it’s okay, you can come out. I’ve absorbed it all.” The Doctor stepped away, fidgeting. He had indeed absorbed it all. He knew he had absorbed it all because he felt _very_ full indeed, the sort of full where it ballooned up inside him and wanted out no matter how impossible - dribbling out of his ears, running out of his nose, blowing out of his mouth. He swallowed, shifting his weight foot to foot. “Used to let us play with Roentgen bricks in the nursery.”   
Suddenly he moaned, low and breathy and ripped from him, as a hot ring of something circled his midsection, pulsing playfully. He doubled over, wincing, gripping the fleshy tops of his thighs. That wasn’t good at all. Usually he could expel Roentgen radiation like it was nothing but it seemed to be reacting with the residual radiation in his body. The hot ring stabbed him in his midsection the second he stopped shifting his weight.

Martha ran to his side in worry; he waved his hand at her.  
“I’m okay, it’s okay...” he said through gritted teeth, “I can expel it all fine.” He wasn’t sure if he was telling himself this out of reassurance or Martha herself. He shifted his weight again and hopped. The stabbing stopped and the hot ring moved, sliding down his thighs. _If he could... just force it into one spot..._ His breath hitched in effort and he trembled. _His shoe, perhaps. Yes, his right shoe..._ the stab came again and he muttered, concentrating, forcing it slightly. Something hot licked his inner thighs, right at the top, and it sort of felt like the sensation he got when he expelled Roentgen radiation, so he let it come, and it ran a little hotter and heavier. _Mm. A bit more liquidy than usual. Weird._ “Ow, it’s— it’s hot,” he stammered, shifting, as subconsciously he gave in and began to release. It gushed out in quick spurts— like a machine gun, that was a new sensation— and then splattered, bursting outward in glittered trails down his legs and even making pools in his sneakers. The relief was an immediate knock to his middle, the knowledge that all the radiation was expelled, all gentle and blissful almost like he had _—no—he hadn’t, had he—_  
 **“Your aim is off,”** called the TARDIS, itching at his brainstem _—shutupshutupshutup—_ **“That’s not your right shoe, that’s... everywhere. And not quite radiation, either.”**  
...She was right. He moaned a little, trying to force the flow to a premature stop, stepping over his toes as his breath hitched. It was an unwelcome tug back to reality, that particular realisation. In front of Martha, too, right when he was considering how good a companion she would make. He could never let her be his companion now, not after she had witnessed this.

“You are completely mad,” Martha whispered in awed shock as she watched the Doctor dance from foot to foot. Last night she had felt his kidneys, for God’s sake, then they had ended up on the moon, he had snogged her, talked some fantastic gibberish and now he was... and now, he was.......

He was... pissing himself...?  
Now, Martha was a trainee doctor, so this in itself wasn’t so shocking. She had been put on so many A&E night shifts with hopelessly drunken men it barely made her bat an eye.  
Plus, when she had examined him he definitely had some inflammation of the kidneys - he was _ill_ , for God’s sake, it was practically a symptom - and yet he was apparently alien enough to absorb lethal radiation without it having any noticeable effect on him, and was bouncing around as if wetting his trousers was barely worth blinking at. She almost wondered if she should have heeded Mr Stoker’s advice and sent him straight to psych. “Did that happen in the nursery, then?” she quipped, watching as a sizeable, glinting puddle spread out across the floor.

“Of course it did, we were just babies.” His voice was silken with relief but embarrassment weaved through—couldn’t stop it, too far gone—as he watched the inner lines of his trousers glisten. This... wasn’t meant to happen. Really, he should have been able to control it, not given in so soon like he had done - or at least not have made the embarrassing mistake of thinking it was radiation he had expelled, for God’s sake. He didn’t meet Martha’s gaze (the gaze he knew was burning through him because why would she not when he had done this) and watched as the last dribbles collected into the embarrassingly generous puddle. Emptiness dropped like a hot stone into the pit of his gut, real emptiness this time—the kind that said there was no more lingering radiation— and he groaned to himself. He knew he was truly empty when something pinged in the back of his brain, a telepathic coo from the TARDIS. **‘All done!’**  
He supposed that meant she would at least open her doors for him now.

“Oh, don’t look like that,” Martha frowned, stepping gingerly toward him. He was frowning as though she had just offered him an injection with the largest needle they had. “You’re not well, sometimes these things happen.” A shrug.

(The Doctor had never been more glad for her readiness to accept his sickness; just her shrugging it off was like a welcome massage to the scalp. It almost made him agree with her and think that maybe it wasn’t his fault after all, maybe it didn’t matter whether he was sick or not. It was done, and that was that, and he still had a job to do.)

“And you’ve killed...” Martha looked at the biker thing on the floor, “E.T from the planet Zovirax, so...”  
She rifled through one of the nearby racks and found a thin cotton suit, throwing it at him. It was meant for protection against the MRI radiation, really, but she supposed she could bend the rules a little bit. “You can’t save the world like that, put this on. Mind the foil.”

The Doctor looked at the cotton suit and winced, but rolled it over his damp suit (and, while he was at it, took off his Converse. Barefoot on the moon!)  
~

Turning in front of the mirror in his sleeping quarters, the Doctor sighed and tugged his brown coat close. Together with Martha he had been able to divert the Judoon to the Plasmavore, and brought Royal Hope Hospital back to Earth where it belonged - but he was most relieved at finally having the chance to get back to the TARDIS, tear off that scrunchy cotton hospital suit, scrub down his legs, and change into one of his favourite suits. He didn’t know what was more embarrassing - wetting in front of Martha like that, or saving the world practically half naked in a hospital gown. 

(“Anywhere, anywhen, Miss Martha Jones!” the Time Lord beamed, hurrying into the console room and pulling a lever. “What did you fancy?”

Then again, she had jumped at the chance to travel with him when he had offered...

He thought for a moment. She might want to go and see, he didn't know, the moon landings or-- or Dylan Thomas, or Shakespeare--good old Shakespeare!

He thought about meeting Shakespeare in a hospital gown.)

...Yeah. On second thoughts, it was definitely that second one.

**Author's Note:**

> when I was eight years old I was in hospital for a year and everybody knew I loved Doctor Who and one of the doctors said that there was a cyberman in the basement and he even took me down there once and was like oh it lives down here don’t make it angry which fucking terrified me for the rest of my stay until it turned out he meant they had FILMED DOCTOR WHO THERE. Not even a cyberman episode, just that they’d filmed. And then I came out of hospital and saw a fucking fleet of the creepy metal bastards!!!! filming outside!!! nearly gave myself a cardiac arrest on the spot 
> 
> aka smith and jones sort of reignites my hospital ptsd tbh


End file.
